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In this paper, it will be argued that the Akan spoken within the Ghanaian immigrant community in Bergamo is currently going through a transitional process that leads from code-switching to language mixing, as illustrated in Auer ((1999) From codeswitching via language mixing to fused lects: Towards a dynamic typology of bilingual speech. International Journal of Bilingualism, 3, 309–332). Analysis of excerpts drawn from a sample of face-to-face interactions, as well as formal interviews (comprising 27 hours of recordings in total), involving a selected group of Ghanaian immigrants in northern Italy will provide a useful starting point for discussing a distinguishing feature of the variety of Akan spoken by the above-mentioned immigrants – that is, the systematic insertion of English ‘chunks’ (e.g. single words or phrases) which do not appear to fulfil any pragmatic or discursive function. It will be argued that this ‘mixed’ variety of Akan is an expressive device of considerable importance within the community’s repertoire, which is regularly employed in informal spontaneous interactions not only by those community members who speak Akan as a lingua franca, but by Akan native speakers as well.

In this article, I focus on the position of Bergamasco, the Italo-romance variety spoken in the Province of Bergamo (Northern Italy), in the linguistic repertoire of the local Ghanaian immigrant community. I argue that Ghanaian immigrants do not speak Bergamasco since the local people refrain from speaking Bergamasco to them. Bergamasco can be regarded as a we-code (Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) of the indigenous community, whereas Italian – in most cases, a simplified variety of standard Italian – is the default choice when communicating with immigrants. The lack of input in combination with negative attitudes and a lack of motivation to acquire the dialect triggers a self-reinforcing dynamic, making the incorporation of Bergamasco into the linguistic repertoire of Ghanaian immigrants unlikely. Excerpts from a sample of face-to-face interactions and semi-structured interviews involving a group of first-generation Ghanaian immigrants reveal that Bergamasco tends to be perceived as a sort of “secret language” deliberately used by local people to exclude immigrants and other outsiders. This stereotype originates from and is reinforced by lack of competence on the part of the migrants, but is devoid of any foundation.

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